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The countdown has begun for those of us who can’t live without thoroughbred horse racing. The first Saturday of May is within sight, less than a month away and there are a whole bunch of unanswered questions before 20 three-year-olds enter the starting gate at Churchill Downs for the Kentucky Derby. Will Union Rags rebound from his 3rd place finish in the 2012 Florida Derby? Will Hansen continue after his impressive win in the Gotham with another win in the Blue Grass Stakes on his way to glory at Churchill Downs? What about Creative Cause? Will he continue his winning ways after the Santa Anita Derby? Will another long shot emerge, like Giacomo or Mine That Bird? The excitement about these 2012 Kentucky Derby hopefuls is because, underneath everything, there lies the promise of something much more exciting than a Kentucky Derby winner: the chance for a Triple Crown winner. Can this year's Triple Crown series be nearly as dramatic as 2009, when veteran jockey Calvin Borel, already a household name because of his last-to-first effort in 2007 with Street sense, repeated the effort with the long shot Mine That Bird to win his second Kentucky Derby? Just two weeks later, Borel switched mounts to the super filly Rachel Alexandra, and with Mike Smith and Mine That Bird closing in the final sixteenth, held on for the win, becoming the first filly since 1924, and only the third EVER, to win the Preakness. They decided not to run her in the Belmont three weeks later, and in retrospect that’s really a shame, because it sure would’ve been fun to see her win. No filly has ever won two legs of the Triple Crown, and after Rachel Alexandra not running in that 2009 Belmont, it’s extremely unlikely if any filly ever will. The last fifteen years have seen some close calls in Triple Crown racing. From 1997 through 2008, a total of seven fine thoroughbreds won the Derby and Preakness, then headed to into the Belmont Stakes with a chance to become a racing immortal. The most recent of those was of course Big Brown in 2008. The fact that he won the Kentucky Derby out of the 20th post position, then took the Preakness easily while being restrained by veteran jockey Kent Desormeaux made the public believe it would happen. Now, we all know what happened. Big Brown sustained a quarter-crack in a hoof, Desormeaux eased him up, and he finished last. Would Big Brown have won the Belmont and become the 12th Triple Crown Champion had that hoof injury not occurred? Or would he have run out of steam, like so many others that have come before him? I tend to think the latter, but we’ll never know, will we? That’s one of the things about the Triple Crown: a horse gets one shot and that’s all, no excuses. Isn’t it beautiful?
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